If you’re a beginner vocalist who is just learning to sing, you’ll quickly notice that you have a lot to think about every time you open your mouth to sing. There’s your breath and breath support to consider, as well as your pitch, your stance, your tone, your facial expression, possibly some jangling nerves and a whole raft of other technical, physical and emotional issues that can seem a little overwhelming at first.

One way of minimising the stress is to start off with songs that are easy to sing. Having a good selection of easy songs to sing will help to reduce the cognitive load on your brain, which in turn will help you to focus better when you sing.

Criteria for songs that are easy to sing

What makes a song easy to sing? If a song meets the following criteria, it’s likely to be relatively easy to sing, and therefore better suited to beginner vocalists, compared to other music in general. Easy to sing songs have:

A simple melody without any difficult intervals (an interval is the space between one note and the note that comes after it)

Simple lyrics that are not overly difficult to enunciate or pronounce

Straightforward timing (notes fall on the beat, with minimum syncopation)

A range of approximately an octave or less (a song’s range is the number of notes between the lowest note in the song and the highest note in the song, so songs with a shorter range are usually easier for a singer to manage)

Deal with subject matter that is universal and not too hard for a singer to interpret or act out

Below I have listed some suggestions of popular songs that are easy to sing and particularly appropriate for beginner vocalists.

It is easy to obtain sheet music for all of the songs listed above, and you’ll find most of the songs have been recorded by more than one artist. This means you’ll be able to listen to a few versions, which is a helpful exercise that enhances your learning process. Remember that to really improve your singing voice, you should either engage a great teacher for weekly lessons, or invest in an excellent singing instruction package.